







GENERAL VIEW OF THE WASHOE SMELTER. 



















A Brief Description of 
the Washoe Smelter 



Members of the A. C. M. Co.’s Staff 



ANACONDA, MONTANA : : , : JANUARY, 1907 

Printed for Private Distribution and Presented with the Compliments of the A. C. M. Co. 


Copyrighted 1907 by the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. 
























Printed by 

Standard Publishing Company 
Anaconda, Montana 
1907 

By transfer 

6 My19W 





WASHOE SMELTER 


/^^HE Washoe Smelter is situated about two miles east of the 
41. City of Anaconda. The smelter site includes about 240 acres 
and peculiarly adapts itself in topography to the efficient 
handling of material. By reason of its being on a hill side it is pos^ 
sible to make the level of delivery of the product of one building 
the level of the charge floor of the next succeeding one. (See dia- 
gramatic sketch—Pig. 2—showing the flow of material through the 
plant and the comparative elevations.) 


THE ORES. 

The ore treated comes principally from the Butte district and is 
hauled by the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway, a distance of 
twenty-eight miles, in trains of fifty 50-ton bottom-dump cars to the 
railroad yards at East Anaconda. At this point these trains are 
split up according to their destination,—that is, as to whether they 
go to the Concentrator and Sampling Mill ore bins, or to the Stor¬ 
age Bins. In each case they are made up into trains of eight or 
sixteen cars, according to the size of engine to be used, and are care¬ 
fully weighed before delivery to their respective bins. 

CONCENTRATOR BINS. 

The Concentrator bins are of wood and steel construction and are 
divided as follows: Eight second-class ore storage bins having a 
capacity of 1,250 tons each; thirteen sample ore bins of 200 tons 
capacity each, and one coal storage bin of 2,500 tons capacity. 

SAMPLING MILL. 

This building is of wood construction throughout and is 40x60 
feet and six stories high. It consists of two complete sections, each 
section having a capacity of 1,800 tons in 24 hours. 

The ore to be sampled is taken from the sample bins by an electric 
locomotive and dropped into bins feeding the crushers. The dis¬ 
charge of these crushers is elevated to the top of the building by 
means of bucket elevators. The stream of ore is cut four times by 
Brunton automatic samplers, cutting out one-fifth of the amount 
each time and discarding four-fifths,—the final result being 3.2 

pounds for each ton of ore crushed. 

The discard from the sampling machines is elevated and dumped 
into concentrator ore bins, or if it is first-class ore, it is sent to the 
storage bins at the Blast Furnaces. The final sample is quartered 

— 3 — 








— I— 


FIG. 2.— DIAGRAM SHOWING FLOW OF MATERIAL THROUGH THE PLANT. 







































































by a Brunton quartering shovel, the resulting sample dried on a 
steam drier, ground in an Engelhardt sample grinder, bucked so as 
to pass through a 100-mesh sieve and put up in three separate sam¬ 
ple packages, one of which goes to the Laboratory for analysis, one 
to the owner of the ore and one filed away for use in case of dispute. 

CONCENTRATOR BOILER HOUSE. 

The Concentrator Boiler House is a brick and steel building, 
located behind the coal bins mentioned and furnishes steam to the 
Concentrator Power House. It is equipped with ten 300-H. P. Stir¬ 
ling boilers, necessary feed pumps, etc., and has an independent 
steel stack 14 feet in diameter and 160 feet high. 

CONCENTRATOR POWER HOUSE. 

The Concentrator Power House, a brick and steel building, is lo¬ 
cated between the two concentrator buildings and is equipped with 
two 4-cylinder triple expansion condensing engines, each capable 
of developing 3,300 I. H. P. at 200 pounds steam pressure. The eco¬ 
nomical I. H. P. is 1,750, with 150 pounds steam pressure, at which 
they are run. There is also a 4-cylinder triple expansion Fraser & 
Chalmers 1,150 I. H. P. engine, used as a spare. These engines 
furnish power to operate the mill and electric generators. The 
electric generators furnish power for the city and works lighting, 
street car system, small power circuits in the city, and all electric 
power required in the works for cranes, motors, etc. The steam 
power will be replaced in the near future by electric power from 
the power plant of the Missouri River Power Company, near Helena, 
Montana, and power from Flint Creek Falls, 22 miles west of Ana¬ 
conda,—the steam plant remaining intact as a reserve. 

CONCENTRATOR. 

The Concentrator consists of two steel and wood buildings, each 
being 255x350 feet and containing four complete sections, or eight 
in all. Each section is equipped with the same kind of machinery, 
and will handle 1,100 tons of ore in 24 hours. The equipment of 
one section is as follows: 

1 12x24-inch Blake crusher. 

2 7xl0-inch Blake crushers. 

6 Coarse concentrate ITartz jigs. 

1 Set of 15x42-inch coarse rolls. 

1 Set of 15x42-inch fine rolls. 

36 Fine jigs (Evans patent). 

1 Set of 15x42-inch middlings rolls. 

18 Middlings jigs (Evans patent). 

3 6-foot Huntington mills. 

18 Fine finishing jigs (Evans patent). 

33 Wilfley tables. 

* 



FIG. 3. 

CROSS SECTION OF SAMPLING MILL. 


















































































































































































































Besides a large number of classifiers, settling tanks, dewatering 
tanks, elevators and trommels of various sizes. A system of laun¬ 
ders carries the concentrates to the settling tanks at the foot of the 
Concentrator build in g. 

The Tank House is a frame building 70x670 feet and contains 
nine settling tanks for each section. These tanks are 19x19x15 feet 
high,—each having a capacity of 420 tons of concentrates. These 
nine tanks are divided as follows: Six for first settlement of the 
concentrates, and three for second settlement of the concentrates, 
or, in other words, for settling the overflow of the first settlement 
tanks; the overflow from the second settlement tanks goes to three 
large tanks common to all sections in that half of the mill,—the over¬ 
flow from these tanks going to the slum pond with the slum water 
from all the settling tanks and Wilflev tables. The concentrates 
caught in the first settlement tanks are called “fine concentrates”; 
those of the second settlement tanks called “second settlement con¬ 
centrates,” and those of the third settlement tanks are called “tank 
slum.” The first two products are treated in the Roaster Building, 
the third at the Briquette Plant. 

SLUM PONDS. 


The Slum Ponds are situated in the valley below the works. 
There are six ponds of different sizes, but averaging about 300x 
630 feet, and the slum water, containing the greater metal values 
coming from the’ Concentrator, goes to these ponds for settlement. 
When a pond is full, the water is diverted to an empty pond, and 
as much water drained off from the full pond as possible. The pond 
is then excavated by one of two Lidgerwood traveling cableways, 
each having a bucket capacity of five tons. The slum is piled out¬ 
side of the pond and allowed to drain and dry, and from these piles 
it is taken by cableway and dropped into a hopper on trucks, from 
which it runs into the railroad cars beneath and is taken to storage 
bins for use at the Briquette Plant. The slime water containing the 
least values is used for condensing purposes and for sluicing slag 
at the Reverberatories and Blast Furnaces. 

The settling tanks containing fine and second settlement concen¬ 
trates are emptied from the bottom, after draining, into the cars of 
the Local Tramming System and transported to the charge floor of 
the Calcine Building,—the material being weighed and sampled be¬ 
fore dumping. It is the practice at this plant to weigh and sample 
the material entering and leaving every building, so that an accu¬ 
rate check is kept on the work of each department. 


ROASTER BUILDING. 

This building is of steel construction throughout and is 96x412 
feet. It contains 64 McDougal calcining furnaces of the Evans- 
Klepetko type. These furnaces have six hearths, 16 feet in diameter 
and are 18 feet high; they have revolving water-cooled shafts and 


arms, driven by suitable gearing from the top. The rabbles are so 
set as to move the material from circumference to center and vice 
versa, on alternate hearths until it finally drops into the calcine 
hoppers immediately over the tracks of the Local Tramming Sys¬ 


tem for transportation to the charge floor of the Reverberatory 
Building. No fuel is used other than the sulphur in the concen¬ 
trates, the burning of which furnishes sufficient heat to do the cal¬ 
cining, except on occasions when the furnace is not hot enough to 
ignite the sulphur, at which times fine coal is fed. The gases are 
taken through brick flues into large brick and steel dust chambers, 
where a large proportion of the flue dust is settled. This dust 
chamber is so arranged that the bottom is a series of hoppers, so 
that the entire contents of the dust chamber can be drawn out into 
the flue dust cars of the Local Tramming System and sent directly 
to the Reverberatory furnaces for smelting. 

The material which sticks to the rabble arms, center shaft, etc., 
called “barrings,” is barred off and sent to the Blast Furnaces. 
Fine limerock and the screenings from first-class ore in sufficient 
quantities to produce the slag desired in the Reverberatories are 
charged with the fine concentrates through the feed hoppers of the 
roaster for the purpose of getting an intimate mixture. Each fur¬ 
nace is capable of handling 45 tons of material in 24 hours. 


REVERBERATORY BUILDINGS. 

This plant consists of two steel buildings each 183x225 feet, each 
containing four coal-fired furnaces the hearth dimensions of which 
are 19 feet in width and from 102 feet to 116 feet in length, with 
a grate area of 8x16 feet and a smelting capacity of 300 tons per 
24 hours, on natural draft. 

The fuel used is Diamondville coal, shipped from the mines in 
Wyoming, owned by the Washoe Copper Company. The coal is 
dumped into hoppers that have four points of discharge directly 
over the fire-box. It is the custom here to charge the furnaces from 
the first two hoppers next to the bridge-wall of the furnace and to 
use charges weighing about 15 tons. 

The flame, after leaving the furnace, passes through two 375 H. P. 
Stirling boilers, in tandem, which reduce the temperature of gases 
going to the main line to about 600 degrees F. By this means 600 
B. IT. P. are obtained from each furnace from the waste heat. The 
ashes and partially burned coal that drop from the fire-box fall into 
a stream of water which carries them over a grizzly, the larger 
pieces of ash going to the slag sluice, the smaller, containing coke 
and unburnt coal, being sluiced to the Coke Jigging Plant, where 
the coke and coal are jigged out and the ashes sent to the dump. 
The coal and coke recovered are elevated to a bin from which they 
are taken to the Briquette Plant by the Local Tramming System 
and there become a constituent part of the briquettes, thus obtaining 





FIG. 4.—SIDE VIEW OF REVERBERATORY FURNACE. 



























































































































































































































































































FIG. 5.—SKIMMING REVERBERATORY FURNACE 















FIG. 6 .— FIFTY-ONE FOOT BLAST FURNACE—TAPPING FLOOR. 




























a fuel value from an otherwise waste product. By this means 10 
per cent of the Reverberatory fuel is recovered. 

r i he slag is skimmed from the Reverberatories twice in eight 
hours; it is allowed to accumulate until its depth is from three to 
four inches above the skimming plate in the front of the furnace 
and then skimmed into a stream of slum water, which granulates 
and sluices it through a cast-iron-lined launder to the slag dump. 
By allowing .the slag to accumulate in the furnace in this manner 
it is possible to skim the furnace very rapidly,—as much as 60 tons 
of slag being removed in twenty minutes. By this method the actual 
use of a rabble to “puli’’ the slag is avoided, the rabble being used 
to keep the “bay” clear of boating pieces of unfused silica and to 
prevent the flow being more rapid than the water can handle 
properly. 

The matte is kept down some distance below the skimming plate, 
making it impossible to “pull” out any of the matte, thus avoiding 
explosions. The matte is tapped from the side of the furnace, 
through copper tap-hole plates, and run through cast-iron launders, 
lined with silicious material, to hot metal ladles of 10-ton capacity 
and taken bv the Local Tramway to the Converters. The brick 
used in these Reverberatories are manufactured by the Brick De¬ 
partment of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which is lo¬ 
cated in Anaconda. They have given the greatest satisfaction. The 
silica brick of that portion of the roof immediately over the fire-box 
(and for a distance of 30 feet from the fire-box) lasting nine months 
and over. The remaining part of the roofs are still in good shape, 
having been in operation for two years. The brick are 15x6x3 
inches. It is the practice to clay, or fettle, the bridge-wall and 
sides where needed every thirty days. The bridge-wall plate is kept 
cool by a circulation of air by a pipe connection to the Main Flue. 
The utilization of the 4 waste heat as a steam producer and the saving 
of the coke from the ashes make a decided reduction in the cost of 
reverberatory smelting. 

BRIQUETTE PLANT. 

The Briquette Plant is a frame building 55x192 feet, containing 
four Chambers Brothers end-cut, auger-type brick machines,—each 
machine having a capacity of 700 tons of briquettes in 24 hours. 
The briquettes are made of fine concentrates, fine first-class ore. 
pond slum, and fine coke from the reverberatory ashes. These 
materials are conveyed from the Storage Bins by belt conveyers 
to a, pug-mill, from which they discharge into the brick machine 
proper, where they are further mixed and forced through a former 
by the auger of the machine in a continuous bar. This bar is cut 
into briquettes, weighing about 10 pounds, by a revolving cutter 
peculiar to this type of machine; The briquettes are conveyed by 
a series of belt conveyers to storage hoppers, from which they are 
loaded into Blast Furnace charge cars as part of the charge. 


— 9 — 


BLAST FURNACE BUILDING. 

The Blast Furnace Building is of steel construction 82x269 feet 
and contains three furnaces,—two of which are 51 feet long and the 
other 87 feet long,—having a width of 56 inches at the tuyeres. 
The smaller furnaces have a capacity of 1,600 tons, the larger 3,000 
tons of charge in 21 hours. Figure 6 shows the general design of 
the small furnace; it is two jackets high and has the crucibles water- 
jacketed. There are two points of discharge, as shown by Fig. 6. 

The bottom of the center of the furnace is of silica brick, laid on 
water-cooled cast-iron plates, mounted on cast-iron columns and 
has a gradual slope to eacli discharge spout. The 87-foot furnace 
has three discharge spouts and three settlers, but is otherwise built 
in the same manner as the 51-foot furnace. The 51-foot furnace has 
eighty-eight 4-inch tuyeres, and the 87-foot furnace has 150. 

The type of furnace used is the Mathewson Patent Blast Furnace. 
It is very successful in operation and much easier to handle than 
the old style furnaces. Its advantages are: That it has increased 
hearth area with but two ends to bind and hold the crusts. Any 
crusts forming on the sides can be readily gotten rid of by allowing 
the furnace to run down, the crust either dropping or being readily 
barred. It has smaller radiating surface for the same hearth area 
than the smaller furnaces, uses less coke, makes a flexible unit,—as 
any part of the furnace can be handled as the case demands, and 
is susceptible of repairs without shutting down the entire furnace. 
Leaking water jackets may be replaced without shutting down the 
furnace, thereby saving considerable time. It takes from six to 
eight hours to change a jacket. The procedure is to shut off the 
tuyeres on the jacket to be changed and the one opposite, allowing 
the water to circulate until all buckstays, tuyere pipes, etc., are re¬ 
moved, and the jacket ready to be pulled out; this chills a wall 
inside the jacket strong enough to hold the contents of the furnace. 
The new jacket is placed in position, all connections made and the 
blast turned on and smelting resumed. The entire end of one fur¬ 
nace has been shut down, jackets changed, furnace cleaned out and 
operations resumed,—and during all this time (extending over ten 
days to two weeks) the other half of the furnace was in operation. 

The circulation of the water through the jackets is as follows: 
Each individual tier of jackets forms a complete set with two feed 
pipes and two discharge pipes. In the case of the tier at the cruci¬ 
ble end, the feed enters the crucible jacket, the discharge from this 
going to the one immediately above, the discharge of this to the 
top jacket,—from which it overflows to the waste pipe. The 51-foot 
furnace has three 7-foot 45-degree unlined steel flues; the 87-foot 
has five. All the flues discharge into a large brick and steel dust 
chamber of the type adopted for the entire plant and described 
under “Roaster Plant.” The dust chamber is connected by a large 
flue to the Main Flue, which will be described further on. 


—10— 






FIG. 7.—FEED FLOOR—BLAST FURNACES. 















FIG. 8.—GENERAL VIEW OF CONVERTERS. 






















The furnaces are charged from both sides, the doors being raised 
by compressed air. A “charge train” consists of eighteen cars 
operated by the Local Tramming System. The cars receive the 
weighed quantities of the various materials from the Storage Bins 
adjacent to the Blast Furnace Building. These bins are in three 
rows and are built of wood. Each row is 28 feet wide, 786 feet in 
length and 20 feet deep, and divided into a series of bins of various 
sizes as required by the volume of material handled. They act as 
storage for first-class ore, coarse concentrates, lime rock, coal for 
Reverberatory and Power House, slum for briquetting, converter 
lining, etc., and are filled from the B., A. & P. tracks op top of the 
bins. All gates in these bins that are used constantly are operated 
by compressed air. The charge train first takes its quota of slag, 
then ore, then coarse concentrates, then lime rock,—then goes to the 
Briquetting Plant, where it receives its quota of briquettes. Two 
charge cars constitute a charge, the weight of which varies from 
8,400 pounds to 11,000 pounds, according to its composition. The 
train when loaded is hauled into the Blast, Furnace Building, where 
the cars are dumped by compressed air lifts. (See Fig. 7.) 

The slag and matte flow from the furnace through the discharge 
spouts into the 16-foot settlers, previously mentioned. The settlers 
are circular and made of half-inch steel plates lined with 12-inch 
silica brick. The slag overflows and is granulated by slum water 
from the Concentrator and is carried off in launders lined with cast- 
iron to the dump. The matte is tapped from the settler into the 
10-ton hot metal ladles of the Local Tramming System and taken 
to the Converter Plant while still molten. 

CONVERTER BUILDING. 

The Converter Building, including the Converter Lining Plant, 
Casting Furnaces and Converters, is 176x416 feet and is constructed 
of steel, except the crushing and mixing department of the Con¬ 
verter Lining Plant, which is of wood. In the Converter Building 
proper there are eleven converter stands. The converters used are 
the horizontal barrel type, 8 feet in diameter and 12 feet 6 inches 
long, and are operated hydraulically. The building is equipped 
with two 60-ton electric traveling cranes,—one for the handling of 
converters when they are in need of replacement and for other work 
in connection with the Lining Department,—the other for handling 
slag and copper from the converters. There are also two 15-ton 
electric cranes in the Casting Department for general use. 

The matte is brought from both Blast Furnace and Reverberatory 
buildings to the charge floor of the Converter Building, which is 
23 feet above the operating floor. The matte is poured from the 
ladle into a launder, the end section of which is pivoted so that it 
can be turned out of the way when the converter is filled. The 
converter is filled in a nearly vertical position with the air blast on. 


— 11 — 


Seven tons of matte per charge is used whether the converter 'is 
freshly lined or not and the charge is finished to blister copper in 
the same converter. 

The slag from the converters is poured into unlined cast-steel 
ladles and taken by the crane to a casting machine of the platform 
conveyer type, having pressed steel moulds. This slag ladle is 
placed in a hydraulic cradle from which the slag is poured into the 
moulds, chilled by sprays of water and conveyed to a steel bin out¬ 
side of the building, from which it is loaded into railroad cars and 
transferred to the Storage Bins for Blast Furnace use. 

The blister copper is poured into a sheet steel clay-lined ladle 
and taken by the crane to a hydraulic cradle from which it is poured 
into the casting furnace. 

CONVERTER. LINING. 

The converters are lined in the main Converter Building, but the 
lining material is prepared in a building 40x62 feet on the south¬ 
west corner of the Converter Building. The lining material is highly 
silicious ore, having gold and silver values, and pond slum is used 
as a “binder.” The material is crushed by a Blake crusher and 
fine rolls, sized by trommels and sent to the bins, which feed four 
Carlin 7-foot grinding and mixing pans. Here it is ground and 
mixed with pond slum to the proper consistency and then trans¬ 
ferred to the converter where it is tamped around a steel form by 
a special Ingersoll-Sergeant tamping machine, 5-incli diameter and 
20-inch stroke. This tamping machine is supported by a revolving 
jib crane, the vertical motion of which is controlled hydraulically. 
After lining, the converter is removed to the drying stand by the 
crane, where it is dried with coal and scrap wood from all over the 
plant, especially from the Concentrator and Sampling Mill. 


REFINING AND CASTING. 

There are three casting furnaces, two having a capacity of 95 
tons and one 110 tons; two of these are in operation all the time. 
The copper is poured in at the side and as soon as the furnace con¬ 
tains fifty or sixty tons, the oxidation by 90-pound air pressure is 
commenced. When the furnace is full, the slag is removed and 
oxidation is completed; it is then “poled” back to the desired pitch 
and cast. The casting machine is a platform conveyer with the 
moulds attached and operated hydraulically. The molten copper is 
run into a suspended ladle, from which it. is poured hydraulically 
into the mould on the machine. When a mould is full the ladle is 
dropped to a horizontal position and the conveyer is moved so as 
to bring the next mould into position, and the process is repeated. 
This machine is capable of casting 25 tons per hour. 

The copper is chilled by a spray and when “set” is dumped from 
the mould onto a platform conveyer, operating through a tank of 


12 


water, then trucked to scales, weighed and shipped to Eastern 
refineries. 

SMELTER POWER HOUSE. 

The Smelter Power House is a brick and steel building 85x526 
feet and contains the various engines, compressors, blowers and 
auxiliaries necessary to produce the various pressures of air re¬ 
quired. 

In this building there are six Connersville and four Roots blowers, 
direct-connected to Corliss engines, and each having a capacity of 
300 cubic feet per revolution, compressing to 40 ounces 360,000,000 
cubic feet of free air in 24 hours for blast furnace use. There are 
six 16-pound air compressors, compressing about 60,000,000 cubic 
feet of free air in 24 hours for converter use. Three 90-pound air 
compressors for general use, such as shop tools, air gates, raising 
blast furnace doors, dumping blast furnace charge cars, tamping 
converters, etc. Four 900-pound air compressors for the air loco¬ 
motives of the Local Tramming System. Four hydraulic pressure 
pumps and accumulators, pumping water up to 360 pounds for use 
in hydraulic apparatus at Converter Plant, and all the necessary 
auxiliaries, such as gravity condensers, dry vacuum pumps, feed- 
water heaters, boiler feed-pumps, etc. The steam for these engines 
is supplied from the waste heat boilers at the Reverberatory Build¬ 
ing and from twelve Stirling boilers in a boiler room bricked off 
from the Power House. The latter will be largely replaced by 
electric power in the near future. 

LOCAL TRAMMING SYSTEM. 

The equipment of the Local Tramming System consists of seven¬ 
teen of the H. Iv. Porter & Co.’s air locomotives, weighing from 12 1 /2 
to 22 tons each, and 240 cars of various kinds. The locomotives 
operate with 900-pound air pressure in the receivers, which is re¬ 
duced by means of reducing valves to 150 pounds for use in the 
cylinders. 

There are 48 miles of standard gage tracks in the works. 

This department handles about 13,000 tons of material each 24 
hours. The charging stations are placed at convenient points 
throughout the works and are fed by an extensive piping system. 
The locomotives are charged about every 20 minutes,—this varies 
according to the nature of the work,—it takes about two minutes 
to charge. 

FLUES AND STACKS. 

There is an elaborate flue arrangement, especially noted for its 
immense size. The three principal flues, viz., the Blast, Roaster and 
Reverberatory, are 20 feet wide and 15 feet high and of brick and 
steel construction. The Converter flue consists of two 7x7-foot flues. 
The Blast, Roaster and Converter flues connect with their respective 


— 13 — 


dust chambers; the Reverberatory fine with the furnaces direct. The 
flues are of the following lengths: 

Blast.1,653 feet 

Roaster. 488 feet 

Converter. 703 feet 

Reverberatorv. 842 feet 

t/ 

These flues all merge into one Main Flue, whose plan and cross- 
section are shown in Figs. 9, 10 and 11. 



FIG. 9. 


For the first 1,200 feet this flue is 60 feet wide; side walls 20 feet 
high; the bottom being excavated at an angle of 30 degrees from 




























the horizontal. The roof is of I-beam and brick arch construction. 
The remaining distance to the stack is 1,122 feet of 120-foot flue 
as shown in Fig. 11. 


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— -16 


C770SS SECT/OH OF VOI/&AE SMOKE E A, IJE 





































































This portion of the flue has a roof of No. 9 sheet steel. The stack 
is 300 feet high with an inside diameter of 30 feet. The top of this 
stack is 932 feet above the surrounding valley. 

The flue dust is drawn off through hoppers, spaced every 10 feet 
in the tunnel, as shown in Fig. 10, into cars operated by the gravity 
system from a set of drums placed immediately behind the stack. 
When the cars are loaded they are sent to the lower end of the 
Main Flue and elevated to the adjacnt flue dust bins. There are 
two sets of bins here,—one for the flue dust containing the desired 
percentage of arsenic for the Arsenic Plant,—the other for flue dust 
to go directly to the Reverberatories. 

ARSENIC PLANT. 

The flue dust intended for the Arsenic Plant is conveyed from 
the bins by inclined revolving pipes into the feed hoppers of two 
Brunton revolving hearth roasting furnaces. The arsenic fumes 
from these are conducted through 240 feet of zigzag flue, cooling 
off the gases from which sublimes the arsenic giving a product of 
about 90% AsoO,,. When a sufficient quantity is produced, the 
roasting furnaces are shut down, and this product handled by wheel¬ 
barrows to a small reverberatory refining furnace, fired by coke, 
and re-sublimed in a similar zigzag flue, thus getting a product of 
99.80% As o 0 3 , which is then ground and barreled for shipment. 

• All residues from the roasting furnaces are transported by the 
Local Tramming System to the Reverberatory Furnaces for smelting. 

CHANGE HOUSE. 

For the convenience of the men there is provided a brick change 
house, 55x97 feet, containing 1,528 lockers, steam heated and venti¬ 
lated by an independent system of flues to the outside air. Hot and 
cold water are provided, as well as shower baths. In this building 
there is an Emergency Hospital, with a trained nurse in attendance, 
who gives first aid to the injured and attends to the minor cases of 
injury. For serious cases a modern ambulance is available to take 
the patients to the hospital in the city. 

FOUNDRY AND SHOPS. 

The different shops, such as the carpenter, machine, boiler, black¬ 
smith, pipe and electric, are all equipped with the tools and ma¬ 
chinery necessary for repair work; the new work and heavy repair 
work being done at the Foundry and Machine Shop, operated by 
the A. C. M. Company for the mines and smelters, as well as custom 
work. This establishment is located on the outskirts of Anaconda. 

LABORATORY SAMPLING MILL. 

All the metallurgical samples taken throughout the works are 
sent to the Laboratory Sampling Mill (which is a brick building 
29x63 feet), and there prepared for the Chemical Laboratory. 


— 17 — 


About 9,000 samples of all kinds of material in process of treat¬ 
ment are prepared each month. 

LABORATORY. 

This is a large brick and stone building of two stories, fitted with 
all the necessary appliances for the making of chemical analyses of 
the ores, and also for assaying. All samples taken in the works 
and at the Sampling Mill are sent to this department and there 
analyzed for such elements as copper, gold, silver, iron, lime, silica, 
alumina, zinc and sulphur. There are 15,000 actual determinations 
made each month. 

In the basement of the Laboratory there are quarters provided 
for the Testing and Photographic departments. In the former there 
are the recording instruments of a branch station of .the United 
States Weather Bureau, connected electrically with the station about 
a mile distant on the top of a hill to the south of the big stack. 

GENERAL OFFICE BUILDING. 

This building contains the offices for the Manager, Assistant 
Superintendents, Chief Clerks, Accounting Department, Engineer¬ 
ing Department and Timekeepers; also a modern telephone exchange 
connecting all departments of the works and numerous outside 
points, such as Butte, Helena, Great Falls, etc. 

A private telegraph wire connects the office with the Western 
Union and Postal Telegraph Companies in Anaconda. 

WATER SYSTEM. 

The storage system for winter supply consists of two lakes,—- 
Storm Lake and Silver Lake. These are natural lakes, supplemented 
by dams to increase the volume. Storm Lake receives its water from 
its natural drainage area; Silver Lake is filled from its drainage area 
as well as receiving its greatest supply from the overflow, in the 
spring, of two lakes known as Twin Lakes. 

In the winter time a certain amount of water is pumped out of 
the Silver Lake storage to supplement the water coming from the 
creeks below. This lake is 15 miles west of Anaconda at an altitude 
of 6,480 feet, or about 1,100 feet higher than Anaconda. The water 
from both creeks and lakes is gathered by a dam about four miles 
west of the city and diverted into a 5x7-foot flume, seven miles long, 
that carries it to the works. 

IN CONCLUSION. 

Some idea of the magnitude of the works may be obtained from 
the following figures: 


— 18 — 


In 24 Hrs. 

Amount of ore that can be treated in 24 hours.10,000 tons 

Lime rock from adjacent quarries. 2,300 tons 

Coke used. 650 tons 

Coal for Reverberatory use. 500 tons 

Coal for Power use. 500 tons 

"Water, per minute, 35,000 gallons. 


Men employed in and around Anaconda, 3,000. 
Monthly payroll for above, $300,000.00. 


$ . 
















